Butterfree Boy
by ethnonyms
Summary: There is a man at Professor Oak's lab in Pallet Town. He is there to kill Tracey Sketchit. implied non-con/underage/violence/disturbing content


It's a quiet, chilly day in Pallet when the stranger arrives, dressed smartly and smiling behind a pair of expensive sunglasses. He's perhaps five or ten years younger than the Professor, but not a young man by any means. "Can I help you?" Oak asks curiously, wondering if he's forgotten an appointment.

The man smiles widely and removes his sunglasses, revealing sharp, dark grey eyes. "Oh, yes," he says agreeably. "May I come in?"

— — —

It's some thirty minutes later when Oak hears the sound of a door slamming from the back of the lab—that'll be Tracey, finally in from feeding all the Pokémon. Privately, Oak wonders at how he ever lived without him.

"There you are, Tracey. Come over here," Oak says genially, impatiently waving a hand from his chair at the kitchen table. He's enjoying a cup of tea with his new guest, who had been enthusiastic to meet the professor's young assistant. "We have a visitor today at the lab. He's a researcher, all the way out from Oreburgh City in Sinnoh, isn't that something? He's interested in seeing our work!"

"Oh, gosh," Tracey says with a nervous laugh, walking into the kitchen with mud caked visibly all over his clothes. "If I'd known we were having company, I would've changed into something nicer than—PROFESSOR, GET _AWAY_ FROM HIM!"

The abrupt, panicked shout comes out of nowhere and catches Oak completely off his guard, startling him so much that he nearly falls out of his chair. Tracey has gone white, flattening himself against the wall beside the door frame as though he could disappear into it with enough effort. He lifts one trembling arm and points it accusingly at the visitor.

"What are _you_ doing here!?" Tracey demands, his tone high-pitched and bordering on hysteria.

The man continues to sip his tea for another moment before placing his empty cup leisurely on the table. Then he stands, pushing his chair casually aside, and walks toward Tracey with unhurried steps while the Professor is still recovering from the outburst.

"My, my, Kenji, you've gotten jumpy," the man drawls, reaching out a hand for Tracey's chin. Tracey jerks away, back still pressed against the wall, and he inches away from the man with a look of pure loathing and fear in his eyes. If the man is disturbed by this behavior, he doesn't show it, only continues talking like nothing is wrong. "And those clothes, goodness, what made you think those were a good idea? Even accounting for the age difference, you look dreadful."

By now Oak has regained enough of his senses to know that whoever this stranger is, he has no business whatsoever being near Tracey. "Excuse me," Oak says angrily, "I'm going to have to ask you to explain yourself, sir, or else leave my lab immediately! You're disturbing my assistant."

The man smiles at Oak good-naturedly, one hand reaching into the pockets of his pricey overcoat. "Ah, my apologies," the man says. He pulls out a loaded revolver and aims the barrel directly between the professor's widening eyes. "It pains me to have lied to you, sir, but I'm afraid I am truly neither a Pokémon researcher nor a Sinnoh native. The fact of the matter is, I am a rancher, hailing from the Orange Islands. Just like butterfree-boy over here." He jerks his head lightly toward Tracey. "And please believe me when I say that I meant no disrespect, Mr. Oak, and I will be _more_ than happy to explain myself..."

"Stop it! Get away from him!" Tracey shrieks from his spot against the wall, his voice pitched high with terror but nonetheless holding even. "Leave the professor alone, he never did _anything_ to you!"

The man slowly turns back to Tracey with a lazy smile, not turning the gun away from Oak's face. "And why shouldn't I shoot him dead right here, Kenji?" he asks. "He hid you from me, all these years. I can't forgive that."

"No! I only moved in this year! He doesn't know anything!" Tracey pleads, desperate. "It's me you want, I'm your target, just leave him alone!"

Oak is left gaping like a Magikarp at this exchange, his face gone ashen with shock and fear. "Tracey, what on Earth is going on?" he asks, flabbergasted. "Who is this madman, and why is he after you? Who is 'Kenji?'"

"Oh, I'm getting to that part," the man says with a smile, keeping his sharp eyes fixed on Tracey. "I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you of all people deserve to know the truth, Professor Oak. You see, 'Tracey' here is hardly the talented, valuable research assistant you agreed to take on to work in your lab. Instead, you've been harboring a fugitive criminal and a shameless delinquent—no doubt, this lying gold-digger has been taking advantage of your kindness all this time, like the worthless, leech-seeding little _butterfree boy_ that he is."

"That's a lie!" Tracey snarls.

"Oh?" the man asks, raising an eyebrow. "So he's just been keeping you here out of the kindness out of his own heart, is that it, Kenji? Or, have you fallen back on your old tricks to seal the deal? Paying off the debt with good old-fashioned—"

"Shut up!" Tracey screams, lunging.

He's fast, but the man is faster. Without ever lowering the gun pointed at Oak's head, he sidesteps Tracey's attack, swinging his free hand into a fist with a hard uppercut that catches the boy right in the gut. Tracey doubles over, wheezing, and the man follows up with a hard kick to the head, sending Tracey sprawling helplessly to the ground.

"_Tracey!_" Oak cries, moving forward, but he suddenly finds the gun's barrel pressed directly against his forehead. He stills.

"Ah, but that's not even his real name," the man says, almost gleeful with malice. He presses a well-polished leather shoe onto Tracey's back and presses him down harder onto the tiled floor. "So many lies, Professor! It turns out you know _nothing_ about your precious assistant after all. Isn't that right, _Kenji?_"

"Stop this at once!" the professor shouts, furious. He curses the walls and fences separating them from the many Pokémon outside. They could end this in a moment. "Take me if you want, do anything else—I will not allow anyone to lay a hand on my assistant under my roof!"

"N-No," Tracey protests weakly from the ground.

"That's right, butterfree boy. Learn your place," the man says cooly, not lifting his foot from Tracey's back. In fact, he presses down even harder, eliciting a moan of pain. "These past few years might have made you _brave_, given you a few inches and a fancy job you don't deserve, but to me, you're still the sniveling child you always were." He smiles sadistically, eyes gleaming as he abruptly stoops down to grab Tracey by the collar of his shirt, dragging him bodily to his feet. "And _nobody_ takes what is mine, least of all a worthless routewalker like you," he hisses. "It was only a matter of time before I got my hands on you again and brought you to justice."

Tracey slumps in his hold, defeated. "How did you _find_ me?" he asks in despair.

The man laughs. He lowers the gun from Professor Oak's head, gently moving to stroke the barrel against Tracey's cheek instead. Oak hesitates, unwilling to attack and possibly place his assistant in danger. The man _knows_ it, too, and gives Oak a smug grin before turning back to Tracey, patting the boy condescendingly on the cheek.

Then, he _slams_ the gun brutally across the side of Tracey's face, hard enough to leave an immediate bruise and eliciting a sharp cry of pain. Oak lets out a strangled shout too, struggles to keep himself from running forward at once and attempting to seize the gun by force. It's all he can do to keep his feet locked in place.

"Information comes cheap if you know where to look for it, boy," the man says with a sneer. "Some Rockets mentioned a trainer matching your description during a black market trade, cubone skulls for a whole nugget's worth a head. Said you were traveling back on the islands, with a boy from Pallet Town and one of the gym leaders from Cerulean City." He grins, leaning in close, and Tracey shudders hard. "Bet they didn't know your little secret, huh? Once I knew I had found you, it was easy to track you down. Awful nice place you ended up in, isn't it, Kenji? Tell me, did you really think this could last forever?"

Tracey shakes his head, though whether he's responding to the question or simply trying to fight off impending hysteria, Oak can't be sure. "I'm so sorry, Professor," the boy mumbles, tears threatening to fall from his eyes, clenched tightly shut. "I didn't _know_ he would come, I didn't think he'd be able to find me here..."

"Tracey, it's all right," Oak says faintly, even though it's anything but. He can't tear his eyes away from the gun still being held flush against his assistant's cheek. Oh, what he would give right now for one of the Pokémon to barge into the lab uninvited, years after he's already broken them all of the habit! All he can do now is try to negotiate, and comfort Tracey. "Whatever happened, it's all in the past. I'm not angry at you, do you understand? This isn't your fault."

"Now, don't go giving him the wrong impression, Professor," the man says pragmatically. Without warning, he drags Tracey away from the wall toward the middle of the kitchen. He bends the boy harshly over the kitchen table and slams his head down onto it, pressing the gun threateningly against his temple. "The past has a way of coming back to reclaim us, no matter where we go to hide from it. Now tell me," he leans down over Tracey's struggling form, "_What did you do with my Pokémon, boy?_ Did you bring them here, to live out their dying days on Professor Oak's happy-farm? Sell them? I never found any sign of them on the market."

Tracey's breath hitches. "You can't reach any of them anymore," he snarls, with a ragged sort of triumph. "_Long_ gone, you creep. I gave them all to different breeders all over the islands. Trustworthy breeders. People who would treat them properly, find them good trainers," he pants. "Not like you. Selling their hides and teeth for cash, anything for a quick buck. Starving the others. I watched them die in the corrals on your property. You _monster._"

The man swears. He smashes Tracey's head down onto the table again, once, twice. Professor Oak's stomach turns and he has to look away, edging slowly toward the kitchen windows. He needs to intervene, soon, but even without the gun in play, Oak's strength is too diminished in old age to fight off a man at the peak of his physical prime. If he can only get the attention of a few of the Pokémon playing around outside...

"That's a goddamn lie!" the man says, half-manic, brutally yanking Tracey around by the hair. "Worthless thief like you, you _had_ to have kept some of them!"

Tracey spits blood onto the table before him, shaking from head to foot. "I'm not selfish and greedy like you," he says grimly. "I couldn't let you treat those poor Pokémon the way you treated—" he begins to shake harder, closing his eyes, "—th-the way, the way you treated—"

The man lets out a barking laugh that quickly transforms into a roar of rage. He drags Tracey up by the shoulders and shakes him hard, dangerously careless with the gun still pressed in his right hand against the boy's arm. "You've got some fucking nerve!" the man shouts furiously, livid beyond all capability of reason. "I _fed_ you, I put a roof over your fucking head, I paid you good money—more than a goddamn _whore_ like you was ever worth!"

Tracey struggles blindly in the man's hold, his defiance slowly giving way to sheer panic. "I was _ten_, you sick bastard!" he screams, thrashing and hyperventilating. "You starved me, you locked me up, _beat_ me, made me do whatever god-awful things you wanted—I was just another Pokémon to you!"

If Professor Oak could afford to be listening to this, he might be ill, vomiting all over the kitchen tile and weeping for the terrible things he's heard. But there's no time now; he's got to take advantage of the man's distraction while it lasts, while he's too enraged to see anything else going on in the room. Oak throws open the nearest window and calls for Ash's Bulbasaur, the first Pokémon he can trust to immediately mobilize the others.

"Get Tracey's Marill, Bulbasaur!" he shouts hoarsely into the garden after the grass-type's retreating back. "And hurry, as fast as you can! This maniac, he has a gun!"

When he pulls himself back into the kitchen, however, Oak fears he might already too late: Tracey's bloodied figure is sprawled motionlessly on the floor, unconscious, and the man is pointing the gun at his stomach, murder and revenge etched chillingly across his face.

"Bye, bye, butterfree boy," he says breathlessly, and he pulls the trigger with bloodied hands while Oak is still sprinting toward them in slow motion from across the room.

— — —

It could have gone _so_ differently, _so_ easily; everyone knows, and the thought chills Oak to his bones for years to come.

In the end it doesn't matter. What's done is done, and lingering on the 'what-could-have-beens' is only going to make his hair gray faster. He's old enough as it is.

The important thing to remember is that Marill got there first.

"Any changes?" Oak asks Nurse Joy in the sterile hallway, slumped in a hard-backed chair just outside Tracey's hospital room. In the seat beside him, Delia is snoozing, utterly exhausted after a day of fielding phone calls and chasing off reporters, keeping Tracey's friends updated on his condition while steering Oak clear of the chaos so he can deal with the procedures and bills and medical reports.

Delia had been the one to call the police, after the first shots rang out.

The force had arrived to find Oak administering frantic first aid to a bleeding mess of a teenager on the ground, while half a dozen angry Pokémon kept guard over a bound, swearing man covered in blood splatters. None of them had bothered to treat his clearly broken arm, which had fractured in two places after Marill launched a rollout attack at full strength into the man's right side.

The presiding Jenny had assured all of them that no amount of black market money or Team Rocket contacts was going to keep this menace out of jail, where he belonged.

In the present, Oak wearily drags himself back to the real world, watching for Nurse Joy's response. She smiles sadly and gives him the tiniest of nods.

"He's waking up now, Professor," she says. "He actually asked me to pass a message along to you, if that's all right."

Oak swallows and nods. "Yes?" he asks, sitting up in his chair.

The Joy clasps her hands. "Mr. Sketchit asked me to tell you, specifically: 'Please, don't tell my friends about it.'" She lets out an unhappy sigh. "I tried to break it to him gently that Mrs. Ketchum had already informed most of his friends about his encounter this morning, including current condition, but he still wanted me to give you that message. It seemed very important to him. I hope this doesn't cause him too much additional grief—that young man has been through quite a lot today."

Tracey's been through quite a lot, period, Oak knows, but obviously he doesn't mention it now. He's still absorbing the truth for himself, and telling anyone else is a breach of trust he can't abide right now. He still hasn't told anyone the motivation that drove the suspect to attempted murder in the first place—save Delia and the police chief, and even those necessary divulges had pained him for his assistant's privacy. "Of course," he says heavily. "Tell Tracey I'll come to see him whenever he's ready. I can wait as long as he needs."

She nods and steps back into the room. Oak sighs wearily and buries his face in his hands, slumping down as far as he can in the chair.

He thinks he's gained about ten years today.

He thinks that, compared to him, Tracey Sketchit must be an old, old man indeed.


End file.
